Management study case - Essay Example

Vacation scheduling Vacation Scheduling An organization’s objectives and goals are best achieved when they are properly communicated to the employees at all levels. Once this is done, efforts should be made to ensure that the employees understand and willingly accept them. If some of them have misgivings or suggestions for change, it is necessary to discuss and iron out such differences. In this way, the entire organization works towards common goals and objectives. My team of Suzy (HR), Sondra (Finance), Ralph (Production Manager) and Sarah (Office Manager) started on the wrong foot by discussing the vacation schedules for each category of employees and trying to secure best deal for themselves and their respective departments.

Evidently this was a wrong approach. They should have attempted to assess the available human resources to meet the objectives of the company and fit the schedules accordingly. Hence my first step would be to call a joint meeting of the full team once again and do a bit of plain speaking on the need for everyone to put company’s interest above that of individuals and to remind that everyone gains when the company prospers and vice versa. I would follow this with a request to Ralph to see me alone with the production schedules for the year based on production / marketing plans, the order book position and ask him to explain and forecast busy and lean periods.

I will then call for a full meeting of the team where, Ralph would explain the same details to the other three team members and seek suggestions from them as to how best to make use of human resources and yet take care of vacation schedules. I would intervene and ask the sub-team of Suzy, Sondra and Sarah to come up with a few things for the next meeting - the list of weeks that are in most demand for vacation, the employees / management staff’s tentative plans for vacation for the year, the priority list of persons who did not avail vacation for a while, and the approved budget for vacation expenses.

Vacation scheduling 2 Once the production schedules, available human resources and the tentative vacation lists are in hand, I would call for the full team meeting once again and ask the team to fit the two together to come up with tentative manpower availability plan to meet the production requirements. By inference, this would also throw up possibilities (options) for scheduling vacations for most employees and management staff. Ralph has to ‘sell’ these schedules to the largest set of employees reporting through him and help them to plan their vacations, as will Sarah do for the management staff.

Once the tentative vacation program is drawn up by these two individuals in consultation with the employees and management, I will ask Suzy to check on the leave status for each individual which would help to eliminate the cases of excessive or frequent abstentions. Simultaneously, Sondra will be asked to ensure that the projected vacation expenses remain within the budget provisions and to come up with justified cutbacks. I will then call for a final meeting of the full team to finalize and fine tune the vacation schedule that would meet the production needs of the company, take care of employees’ preferences on an equitable basis and which can be implemented without overshooting the planned expenditure.

This schedule will have met the aspirations of most employees and management without jeopardizing the production and marketing objectives of the company.